In a flexible management environment, a job manager allows
you to submit administrative jobs asynchronously for application servers
registered to administrative agents, for deployment managers, and
for host computers. You can submit these jobs to a large number of
servers over a geographically dispersed area.
You can register stand-alone
application servers that are registered
to administrative agents, deployment managers, and host computers
with the job manager. After you register stand-alone application servers,
deployment managers, or host computers as targets, you can queue administrative
jobs directed at the targets through the job manager.
To register
application server nodes and deployment managers with
the job manager, use an administrative console or the wsadmin registerWithJobManager command.
The command is in the ManagedNodeAgent command group.
To register
hosts with the job manager, use an administrative console
or the registerHost command. The command is in
the JobManagerNode command group.
newfeat
New feature: You
can complete job manager actions and run jobs from a deployment manager.
The deployment manager administrative console has
Jobs navigation
tree choices similar to those in the job manager administrative console.
newfeat
Use the job manager to asynchronously administer job submissions.
You can complete the following tasks:
- Set the job submission
to take effect at a specified time.
- Set the job submission
to expire at a specified time.
- Specify that the job submission
occur at a specified time interval.
- Notify the administrator
through email that the job has completed.
Each application
server, deployment manager, or host registered
with the job manager is known as a target to the job manager. Groups
of targets are those groups that you create so that you can make job
submission easier. You can submit a job for a group of targets instead
of entering multiple target names for a job.
Many of the management
tasks that you can perform with the job
manager are tasks that you can already perform with the product, such
as application management, server management, and node management.
However, with the job manager, you can aggregate tasks and perform
those tasks across multiple targets.
Example uses
of job manager
The following
hypothetical company environments are examples of situations where
a job manager is useful:
- Branch office environment
- A business has a thousand stores geographically dispersed across
the continent. Each store contains either a few application servers,
or a small WebSphere® Application Server, Network Deployment cell
consisting of two or three machines. Each store is managed locally
for daily operations. However, each store is also connected to the
data center at the company headquarters, potentially thousands of
miles away. Some connections to the headquarters are at modem speeds.
The headquarters uses the job manager to periodically submit administrative
jobs for the stores.
- Environment consisting
of hundreds of application servers
- An administrator sets up
hundreds of low-cost machines running
identical clones of an application server. Each application server
node, which is registered with an administrative agent, is registered
with the job manager. The administrator uses the job manager to aggregate
administration commands across all the application servers, for example,
to create a new server, or to install or update an application.
- Environment consisting of dozens of deployment
manager cells
- An administrator sets up hundreds of application
servers, which
are divided into thirty different groups. Each group is configured
within a cell. The cells are geographically distributed over five
regions, consisting of three to seven cells per region. Each cell
is used to support one to fifteen member institutions, with a total
of 230 institutions supported. Each cell contains approximately thirty
applications, each running on a cluster of two for failover purposes,
resulting in a total of 1800 application servers. The administrator
uses the job manager to aggregate administration commands across all
the cells, for example, to start and stop servers, or to install or
update an application.
Example
topology
The following example topology
shows a deployment manager and a federated node that is managed by
the deployment manager on machine A; two application servers, Profile01
and Profile 02, registered with an administrative agent on machine
C; a job manager on machine D; and a web server on machine B. Firewalls
provide additional security for the machines. The administrative agent
and the deployment manager are registered to the job manager. The
administrative agent and deployment manager periodically poll the
job manager to determine whether the job manager posted jobs that
require action. Read the topic on planning to install WebSphere Application Server for further information
on the topology.
